Silver Fins
The Silver Fins are the second largest group of Water Tribals in the post-war ruins of Laramie Point, having followed their long-time enemies, the River Men, to the ruined town and taken up residence alongside them. The Silver Fins have been locked in a bitter struggle with their admittedly more succesful foes for control of Laramie Point for decades since their arrival in the 2150s, but have now enjoyed certain degrees of recent success thanks to the efforts of their most famous champion, and one-man mass-murderer, Pyr-Anrah. History The Silver Fins original founding began after the initial breakaway of tribals, tired of the struggling tribe as it began to increasingly become overburdened by the influx of Water Tribals either willingly or unwillingly merging with the tribe, from the already-large River Men tribe around 2147. These tribals, wanting to differentiate themselves from their River Men former-brethren, garnered their tribe's name from their liberal use of silver-like body paints on their gills and fins - though this paint was naturally in rather short supply as the tribe grew from Water Tribals either unwilling or unable to join the River Men's own march across Louisiana or former River Men ousted from the tribe. The two tribes naturally had a great grudge; skirmishes and hit-and-run attacks on both sides were particularly frequent and common, all the while, paradoxically, the two tribes stayed within a hair's breadth of one another; the Silver Fins followed their former allies across the Louisiana wastes for the last years of the 2140s, all the while watching their former friends with envious eyes as their enemies' ranks swelled. By 2150, the Silver Fins had grown somewhat large enough to challenge the larger hunting and scouting patrols of the River Men, but were nowhere near as strong in numbers as the River Men. Still following the River Men, they naturally found the ruined town of Laramie Point just as the River Men were first driving out the last outsiders in the town. As per their previous actions, the Silver Fins copied the River Men's setting up of a main encampment on the outskirts of the town; the River Men doing so out of fear of entering the middle of the ruined town due to tribal myths and taboos and the Silver Fins doing so out of fear of being crushed by their more powerful enemies. The 2150s onwards saw the Silver Fins attempting to match their enemies through different means; breeding was encouraged heavily, whilst new arrivals were generally forced to prove themselves "worthy" of being a part of the Silver Fins through uniquely challenging tests of courage, strength and stamina. The Silver Fins' society adopted a strict warrior system; male children were encouraged to revere and ultimately become warriors and hunters, with a rudimentary "education" providing fanciful tales of brave warriors vanquishing great beasts, whilst female children were encouraged to become mothers, often being regaled with the joys of childbirth and the honour and duty of such things. Attempts were made to match and even surpass the River Men in fighting prowess and skill to make up for what they lacked in manpower throughout the 2100s, all the while watching their hostile neighbours with an air of unrelenting suspicion and animosity on the Silver Fins' behalf. By the 2200s, the tribe had formed a strongly regimented society; socially conservative, the tribe felt threatened on all sides by an increasingly expanding River Men and the odd outsider attacking a tribal patrol. Every little incident and skirmish was blown out of proportion, distorted as a great battle between good and evil. Religious rituals and tribal worship of totems and obscure gods was very prevalent also, even to the point where ritual cannibalism was condoned and even encouraged. Born out of this was a deeply terrifying warrior figure, born around 2255; Pyr-Anrah, who would later become something of a legend and even greater inspiration for the tribe's would-be-warriors. It was not until the 2240s that this forceful figure would shine; around 2245, Ewing Bay's pseudo-aristocracy had begun to eye the ruins of Laramie Point with an eye on forming a smuggler's hold on the coast; a useful place to escape watchful eyes in Ewing Bay itself. The first few forays by smugglers barely raised any eyebrows on the behalf of the River Men, but enraged the Silver Fins; or at least, the mostly xenophobic warrior caste. Though for the most part these smugglers were avoided, overzealous warriors and hunters would more often than plunge into the fray in the hopes of killing, and potentially tasting, a hapless smuggler. These admittedly minor losses seemingly didn't phase the pseudo-aristocracy of Ewing Bay; by 2275, they had decided to send their full forces out to Laramie Point and attempt to seize the town, apparently not taking into account the tales of the brutal Silver Fins. The Silver Fins themselves were both outraged and delighted; almost immediately after the first outposts were secured in the ruins of the town by the smugglers, these same smugglers were descended upon by raging warriors clad in loincloths and dried blood, snarling and plunging at these more often than not terrified smugglers through swamp mists armed with spears and clubs. Many an unfortunate smuggler met his end at the hands of these brutal warriors, none-more-so brutal than Pyr-Anrah, the growing champion of the tribe with an axe to grind, both figuratively and literally in some cases, against outsiders. Throughout this, an unofficial but universally accepted peace existed between the River Men and the Silver Fins, albeit an uneasy one. The retreat from Laramie Point by these smugglers by November of that year served to highlight the tribe's already renowned nature as tough warriors, and elevated Pyr-Anrah to celebrity status within his tribe, earning him some much desired respectability. Naturally, the Silver Fins felt no inclination to rest on their laurels after this great "war", feeling the need to fight once more; they soon found reason to when the River Men began spreading out from their main encampment and seizing recently "liberated" areas of the town for themselves. Once again leading the charge was Pyr-Anrah and numerous other warriors at the Silver Fins disposal, furthering their reputation as brutal monsters as they tore through their River Men foes in pitched skirmishes across the ruins of the town, mounting casualties on both sides signalling the start of a long and bloody war. Around the 2280s, with the ongoing war for control of the ruins of Laramie Point still raging on, the Silver Fins caught wind of ongoing talks between the River Men and the last Human and Ghoul residents of Laramie Point, themselves hanging onto a shanty-town on the outskirts of town. The topic of these negotiations were unknown, but rumours began to circle about the talks being about securing manpower, weapons and even long-taboo weaponry that many of the tribals considered to be off-limits magic. These rumours prompted many in the tribe to demand action be taken against these outsiders, to expel them once and for all from the area and cost the River Men likely allies in their war; surprisingly, the leaders of the Silver Fins were reluctant to do so. For them, the outsiders might make useful allies for themselves, provided the talks with the River Men collapsed, even though these rather over-optimistic thoughts were hampered by a lack of knowledge regarding the English language and the overall prevalent hostility of the tribe. In the end, with even the tribe's champion warrior, who himself had accrued a massive audience of warriors, scouts and hunters keen to emulate him in terms of both powerful physique and savage mentality, Pyr-Anrah, calling for outright genocide of the outsiders in Laramie Point, the tribe's leaders acquiesed by January of 2287 and allowed Anrah to lead a force to wipe out the settlers. Anrah and his force followed through with their promises, gleefully made amidst a crowd of cheering kinsmen, massacring every outsider they could find, from the oldest, frailest Ghoul to the youngest screaming child, torching every ramshackle structure and rusted raft in the town. Not many denizens were left to flee, but those that did never dared return, faced with the savage twisted smiles of cheering Silver Fins tearing their friends and families apart with clubs, spears, axes and knives. In the immediate aftermath, the Silver Fins returned to the town with an increasingly keen eye on repeating their massacre at the River Men's own main encampment; to the horror of the Warchief and his fellow leaders, Anrah and the warriors that he himself had inspired had adopted a completely new brand of savageness, which, while undoubtedly useful in war, made them dangerous to all around them, including their fellow tribals. As of the curent year and date, October 23rd 2287, the battles for Laramie Point rage on, with increasingly savage Silver Fin warriors battling increasingly battle-hardened River Men warriors in a seemingly never-ending battle for control of the ruins of the town. Culture For the Silver Fins, a rigid warrior culture serves as the tribe's uniting ideology; an ideology where every man and boy must stand as a great warrior and an inspiring example of bravery and selflessness in the tribe, and every woman and girl shall stand as a matriarchal figure of rugged strength and motherly virtues. This ideology has admittedly worked somewhat; many of the Silver Fins' warriors are noted for their incredibly powerful physique and imposing appearance, thanks largely to the years of training that many tribal warriors go through to reach the idealised image, whilst many of the tribe's women stood as paragons of the tribe's idealized maternal values. Naturally, the tribe's warrior-oriented culture has led to numerous totems and idols being made in honour of gods that the tribe, quite like their River Men brethren, worship; the main god is that of war. Though nameless, this god has become a staple of the tribe's religious ceremonies; ceremonies that mostly involve the giving of thanks to this deity in elaborate sacrifices of living animals and, in certain cases, living Human, Ghoul and Water Tribal captives. Equipment *'Longbow:' Usually well-crafted, though this naturally varies depending on the skill of the individual crafting it, the Longbow is a formidable weapon often seen in the hands of the tribe's scouts, hunters and warriors. Crafted personally by those who use it, these bows are very deadly in capable hands; some especially skilled archers in the tribe have been seen piercing boiled-leather armour in certain eyewitness accounts. *'Club:' Clubs are a common weapon, seen in the hands of many of the tribe's warriors; be they made of bone, rock, wood or even metal, these crude but effective weapons can easily batter enemies to a bloody pulp, provided they're in the right hands. Although entirely dependent on the strength of the user in terms of ability, these weapons are more often-than-not the most common weapon one can come across in the hands of River Men. *'Spear:' Another crude weapon, usually nothing more than a sharpened piece of flint on the end of a particularly sturdy stick, the Spear is a very common weapon amongst the scouts and hunters of the Silver Fins; due to the usual fragile nature of these weapons, of course, they are usually used as throwing rather than melee weapons. *'Axe:' Axes, be they crafted by hand or pulled out of ageing storage sheds, are a rather are weapon; most hunters and scouts prefer the spear and bow's allowances in terms of distance, whilst Warriors prefer the sheer blunt-force of a club; nevertheless, Axes can be seen in the hands of particularly "refined" tribals, more-often-than not being used to lop-off the limbs of hapless foes. Longbow.png|Longbow Club.png|Club Spear.png|Spear Axe.png|Axe Ranks *'War-chief:' The leader of the tribe, a role currently filled by Warchief Ey-al, the War-chief title is very much an appropriate title; the Silver Fins' war-chief is barely present in the main encampment, seen instead usually patrolling the outskirts with a cadre of personally selected, loyal warriors. *'Shaman:' The resident mystics and wizards, rumoured to have all manner of knowledge in arcane arts and thought to partake in obscure rituals, the Shamans of the River Men also serve as healers and priests. *'Warrior:' The defenders of the tribe, Warriors serve as the main fighting force of the tribe. Capable of fighting on both land and sea, these tribesmen and tribeswomen are particularly ruthless and dedicated to protecting the tribe; no matter what. *'Scout:' The Scouts are the tribe's most useful asset; nimble, perceptive individuals capable of mentally-mapping terrain and watching hostiles, be they man or monster, from afar or up close, all the while employing particularly useful tactics, such as partly submerging themselves in muddied water next to enemy camps, learned by other Scouts and passed down through the generations. *'Hunter:' The most common occupation in the tribe, Hunters are lowly but valuable; due to the lack of successful sustenance farming attempts, not to mention a self-reliance and refusal to trade, the meat and hide brought back by Hunters is an invaluable source of resources that could not be readily sacrificed by the tribe. Gallery Silver Fins Tribal.png|A Silver Fins Tribal Category:Groups Category:Tribals